ATHENRY began the Connacht agricultural show season last Sunday when the show took place on the grounds of the Teagasc Mellows campus near the town.

The sunny weather brought out locals and visitors to the long-running show and next year’s show date has already been set for May 26th.

All the horse and pony classes took place in one field this year, a change appreciated by the exhibitors.

Entries were best in the ridden horse and Connemara classes. This year’s ridden hunter champion was the Irish Draught purebred Gleann Rua Marksman (Gortfree Hero), owned by Craughwell couple William McMahon and Grace Maxwell Murphy. They won the Athenry championship last year with another of their horses, Gleann Rua Da Vinci who was the overall hunter champion at the Dublin Horse Show last August.

Sadbh O’Connor’s Fifth Avenue (Kings Master) won the show hunter pony title ahead of Kitty Concannon’s purebred Connemara Kilnavara May (Coral Bambi).

Another ridden champion was Philippa Scott’s Milliner (Goldwell), a winner of two of the popular racehorse to riding horse classes before being judged as the champion in this section.

The Irish Draught champion and reserve titles went home with two more Mayo exhibitors, this time from Swinford. Dominic Cassidy won the championship with his mare The Farmers Lady (Tors Gentleman Farmer) and in reserve was Mary Murphy’s Castlegates Perfect Illusion (Barnaview Grosvenors Lad).

The coloured classes, held in the same ring, are always popular at Athenry and Katy Whyte from Ballyglunin owned Ralph, the coloured horse champion.

Yearling classes were the best supported in the young horse section and the champion young horse was Midlands exhibitor Danielle Cusack’s yearling filly Brittas Lady Grace (Clonaslee Captain Cristo).

Some of the day’s biggest numbers were seen in the Connemara ring where three titles were up for grabs. The first championship to be decided was for the junior champion and Cathy Snow’s yearling filly Moorland My Oh My (Lucky Rebel) took the tricolour here and in reserve was Kieran McGrath’s Hazelrock Galaxy. The champion foal, owned by Tomas Grimes, was Copperbeech Ivy (Innellan Condor) and the reserve was Eugene Doyle’s Clonmore Marble.

The final championship of Athenry Show was for the overall supreme Connemara and this tricolour went to Amy Curran’s Glencarrig Countess (Glencarrig Knight), the winner of the seven to 10-year-old mare class. In reserve was Robert Nee’s winner of the previous mare class, Glencoaghan Rachel’s Princess.